Mieko Ouchi

Mieko Ouchi is an actor, filmmaker, musician and playwright. This native of Edmonton, Alberta is described as half-Celtic, half- Japanese, and all Canadian. Her documentary film Shepherd’s Pie & Sushi explores her paternal ancestry as she examines her grandfather Edward Ouchi’s experiences as a Japanese immigrant to Canada. Ouchi is a founding co-director of Concrete Theatre and a recipient (2003) of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for her contribution to the arts community of Alberta.

Drama

I Am For You

Publisher’s Synopis

Lainie and Mariam have it out for each other, so it’s no surprise when they finally come to violent blows in the middle of their high school’s drama room. That’s when Caddell Morris, an ex-professional actor and newly minted student teacher, steps in. By teaching the girls the art of stage combat, he hopes to help them understand more about the roots and costs of violence. But when he convinces the drama teacher to let them play Mercutio and Tybalt in their school production of Romeo and Juliet, swords, words, and egos battle and clash. Can Lainie and Mariam find a way to work together?

Drama

Mieko Ouchi: Two Plays: The Blue Light and The Red Priest (Eight Ways to Say Goodbye)

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)

The Blue Light
Leni Riefenstahl, 100 years old, is in the office of a young female Hollywood studio executive. Leni’s reason to be there is clear, to make one last desperate pitch to direct her first feature film in fifty years. The young woman willing to meet her? Much harder to say… A thought provoking contemplation on art, politics and the seduction of fascism, and a theatrical examination of a woman who danced one perfect dance with the devil and changed the way films are made forever.

The Red Priest
Trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage, a young un-named woman is forced by her husband, a rich courtier of Louis XV, to take violin lessons from the aging and desperate Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, and within six weeks play a concerto for the court in Paris in 1741. All for a bet. The delicate, complex and combative journey they embark on will not only decide their futures, but also change them both in ways they never imagined. A story about the healing power of music and the journey to become an artist.

Awards and Honours

Drama

Nisei Blue

Toronto, Ont.: Playwrights Canada Press, 2012?

Publisher’s Synopis (from its website)

A retiring detective is haunted by visions from his past: a glittering nightclub in 1939, a beautiful Japanese Canadian jazz singer and a rookie case that never got solved. Forty-five years later, he returns to the scene of the crime to uncover the truth. But can he put the pieces of the puzzle together before they fade away?